Wednesday 6 July 2016

Comfort zones...

We all need our personal space. If people (well, uninvited people…) come too close, we feel uncomfortable. The extent of this comfort zone depends on variables such as age, gender, ethnicity and our own personal preferences. In recent years we seem to have created another kind of personal space which extends a bit further. When a queue builds up behind a person using an cash machine, there’s an unspoken agreement that they should keep their distance. They want to give the person space, but without losing their place in the queue. This may mean standing six or seven feet away - maybe more - from the person getting cash out.

When we’re paying by card in a shop, there may not be room for other people to maintain a similar distance. So what they do instead is turn slightly away - a quarter turn - and pretend to be fascinated, for a few seconds, by the point where the wall meets the ceiling, so the person can tap in their PIN number in relative privacy. There’s no rule telling us where to stand or where to look; no-one says "look away now". It’s behaviour we seem to have worked out for ourselves, to oil the wheels of these everyday transactions…

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